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THE DELEGATE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2016 7 SPOTLIGHT: THE ARCHITECTS OF THE SLATE BOOK L-R: Eddie De Lisle, Drew MacQueen, Ryan Smith, Phil Barbarello, Paul Rinaldi, Trish Gilbert, Dean Iacopelli, John Bratcher, Eugene Freedman, Jamaal Haltom Going into contract negotiations for what became the recently implemented Slate Book covering the ATC/FSS/TMU/NOTAM bargaining units, NATCA President Paul Rinaldi said he had one guiding philosophy. "I wanted to continue to build on the road of success and collaboration that NATCA and the FAA have developed over the past several years, and continue to move the Agency forward and continue to grow aviation in this country," he said. Collaboration is named several times throughout the contract. It incorporates all of NATCA's collaborative principles and processes and will provide stability for the workforce for the next six years. Collaboration is not simply a memorandum of understanding. It is a practice that has been fostered by NATCA and the FAA for the last several years that is now memorialized by the contract. "Most of the changes you will see in the contract really reflect just a change of acknowledging the way we have been working for quite some time," Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Organization (ATO) Chief Operating Officer Teri Bristol said. Interest-based bargaining was a leap of faith, Rinaldi said, but there was trust in collaboration on both sides. The result, NATCA's Slate Book Chief Negotiator and Eastern Regional Vice President Dean Iacopelli said, was a big step forward in the parties' relationship. "In this case, we worked our way through a term agreement for over 14,000 employees without requiring the outside assistance for arbitration or even mediation," he said. NATCA and the FAA developed processes to ensure collaboration at the national, regional, and local levels, setting the stage for the successful contract negotiations. "When you reach a voluntary agreement, certainly the parties have more ownership of the words that come out on the paper, and more ownership of its implementation," NATCA Executive Vice President Trish Gilbert said. The NATCA membership ratified the contract with the highest percentage of any collective bargaining agreement in the Union's history: 98.32 percent. "It's the first voluntary agreement in nearly two decades," said FAA ATO Vice President Tim Arel, "That's pretty significant in and of itself. But I think it speaks volumes about the maturity of our relationship and about how far we've come in reaching a common understanding." "I think the truth is, both sides won," Iacopelli said. ✪ NATCA's Contract Team: Dean Iacopelli, Chief Negotiator, Eastern Regional Vice President Phil Barbarello, Former Eastern RVP John Bratcher, Fort Smith ATCT Eddie De Lisle, Portland TRACON Jamaal Haltom, Las Vegas ATCT Drew MacQueen, Cleveland Center Eugene Freedman, Special Counsel to the President, National Office Ryan Smith, Director of Labor Relations, National Office

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